We are all capable of greatness.

Practice makes perfect.

Be honest with your emotions.

Wear your heart on your sleeve.

Don’t take yourself so seriously.

There is always room for fun.

Be yourself (as Laurent advised us).  Put yourself in his (or anyone else's) choreography.  Don’t try to do things like him (or someone else), because it won’t be the same.

Everything has to come from your heart.

Just feel the music.

Who cares if you look ugly while dancing?

Just feel it.

Dancing with them isn’t easy.

They are freaking fast.

How the hell do they make it look so f%$uCUjhjkd! easy???

Shine.  Let yourself shine.  Everyone will be happier for it. 

“No time for be shy.” 

Their taste in music is as awesome as they are. 

The average person hears 4 counts of rhythm.  They hear 12. 

 
Check out a clip from their session at the Boston Workshop below! I make my cameo appearance at about the 4:30 mark on the right side of the screen, in a gray t-shirt just trying to see what was happening, but it was really hard to make it to the center of the circle. 

You never know when someone’s good deed will become a pivotal moment in your life causing you to pause and reflect.

It was the week before I started my freshman year at Cornell.  My parents rented a van and I tried my best to fit my entire life in it for what was supposed to be a six-hour trip.  We left late in the afternoon, near the time of rush hour – against all of my father’s advice to leave earlier.  We were doing fine – until of course, we got lost.  By nightfall, the van began to drag very slowly.  I found out to my horror that it was because it was too heavy with my belongings.  Nevertheless, we continued to inch our way along the breakdown lane.  The “highway,” which was really a skinny stretch of land in the middle of nowhere, was pitch black from the dearth of cars.

My father eventually pulled into the driveway of someone’s home.  It was the middle of the night.  He got out, walked to the door, and rang the doorbell, not knowing what to expect.  I saw him talking to someone who opened the door.  Then a few minutes later, a senior man came out, got into his car or truck and asked us to follow him.  He drove us to the nearest rest stop.  We were in Utica.  We had been trying to get to Ithaca.  The man who answered the door didn’t answer with a gun, but instead brought blankets so that we could cover ourselves in our van.  I barely slept though because I had no idea where we were.  When the sun rose, the man who drove us to the rest stop came back with his wife.  They brought us breakfast – as in actually paid for – my mother, father, two sisters, cousin, and me.  Then, they sent us on our way.  We made it to Ithaca, waaaay more than six hours after we had initially left my house.

Four years later, I graduated Cornell.  To my initial embarrassment, I learned that my father had kept in touch with this man and would stop by his house to visit whenever he had finished driving me to school (Dad, don’t overstay your welcome, I thought when he told me this.  My father can be one of those people, for better or for worse).  In my case though, it turned out to be for the better.  The man who saved us, whose name I only somewhat recall, ended up sending me a $25 check after he learned that I graduated Cornell, just to say congratulations.  A few years earlier, we – I – who had showed up at his door-step in the middle of the night, had just been a stranger to him.  If I had been him, I probably would have given the person directions and sent them on their way – or worse, I probably would have been too scared to open my own door.

But he wasn’t.  And he saved my family from what could have been a harrowing experience.  And four years later, he remembered me.

There are really good people in this world, and whenever I get bombarded by the negative news out there, I tend to forget this.  But someone out there whom you haven’t met yet, may one day become your guardian angel.  And it’s the actions of these people that really make me think. 

Maybe one day, I’ll be someone’s guardian angel too.  

I haven’t had a work wife yet.  But I’ve had a work husband.  Who was this husband?  A man who I never thought in a million years would have turned out to be my office friend and spouse.  We met abroad while we were both working in the Netherlands.  When I found out where he was from, I started to say good morning to him in his language.  He said that he found me curious.  He came up with an exchange.  I would teach him English, and he would teach me his language.  I agreed.  As a way to say thank you, he started cooking lunch for me, and boy was it good.

We started having lunch together on most days. During work he would come to my office for coffee breaks, even on demand!  If I wanted to do so much as walk down the hall to the coffee vending machine (which I wish to God we’d get here in the States somewhere), he would leave his office, come to mine, and walk me down the hallway.  On one of our trips to the coffee machine, I was making fun of him for some reason.  Out of nowhere he blurted rather calmly, “I hate you Sabrina.”  I busted out laughing so hard I nearly peed in my pants.  I went straight to the bathroom in a fit of laughter, did my deed and came out.  He was still standing where I left him, wondering how what he said could have been so funny.  He was laughing with me (or at me). 

One night I stayed at work while I was working late on a paper that I needed to finish. It was due by midnight Eastern standard time, and thank goodness I had the six-hour time difference, because I took it to mean that I had until 6 a.m. Netherlands time.  Needless to say, I knew it was going to be a long night.  I think it was a Friday.  Naturally, all the other interns had plans to go out and spend the night on the town.  I asked my work husband if he could come back after he was done to “pick me up” (on his bike that is) around midnight or 2 a.m. when I thought I’d be done with my paper.  I knew it was a stretch of a request, and in the end he said that he couldn’t come back to get me.  But to my surprise and non-surprise he had actually considered it and had wanted to make it work.

I was so lucky to have him.  Before meeting him, I had never laughed so much or so hard.  We went out to dinner and bars on the weekends.  We caught a live concert before Obama’s first election and he reveled with me in my joy when the singer started free-styling after I shouted Obama’s name from the audience.  We cooked together for dinner parties at a co-worker’s house (ok, he cooked; I cut the cheese).  At work I could call him whenever I needed him or wanted to hang, and the only words he’d say when he answered the phone were: “I’m coming.” 

I left three months later.  My internship was over and he stayed on at work.  On my last day of running errands before I left, he came by my place to help me finish doing the things that I didn’t have time to do before leaving. 

That was six years ago.  Today, he lives across the ocean in his homeland.  Although we probably will not see each other as often as we used to during that 3-month period that we were both working together, I will never forget the uniqueness of our friendship and the immediate closeness that we shared. He was my work husband.  And the best part of our friendship is that he can still make me laugh.